Valve to replace Steam Greenlight with Steam Direct this Spring

Steam Greenlight launched nearly 5 years ago and hasn't been without its share of controversy ever since. What started as a slow drip of approving games by means of popular voting by the community in the beginning has become smaller developers' main chance at getting their games on the service.

But today Valve has announced that they're pulling the plug on Steam Greenlight in order to make way for a different, more direct approach appropriately called "Steam Direct." This new path will require developers and publishers to submit a complete set of digital paperwork, personal or company verification, and tax documents -- similar to setting up a bank account, Steam says.

Once that's all finished, developers will have to pay a recoupable application fee for each title that they want to distribute on the platform. Like the $100 fee for Steam Greenlight, Valve is doing this to "decrease the noise" in the submission pipeline. However, the new fee has not been decided yet. Valve mentioned that it might be anywhere from $100 to as high as $5,000.

Needless to say, that fee range has not sit well with many indie developers since the announcement of Steam Direct was made -- including Vlambeer's Rami Ismail, who stated in a couple of tweets:

Valve is still gathering input from developers on the matter before making a final decision. In the meantime, expect to hear more about Steam Direct as we get closer to its release, which is targeted for sometime this Spring.

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